HISTORY OF CIRCUMCISION

You already know what circumcision is. Now learn about its origins and trajectory across history, and find out why it became so "famous".

Ritual circumcision is extremely old, with concrete evidence of its practice thousands of years ago in different parts of the globe, such as Africa, Middle East and Oceania[1].

​In the American continent, it is known that the Mayans performed genital bloodletting rituals, but there is some controversy about whether such rituals involved or not the amputation of the foreskin[2].

The similarity of rituals from African tribes distant thousands of miles between each other suggests that circumcision is a remarkably old practice in such continent[3]. Therefore, it is not an overstatement to say that the amputation of the foreskin is "prehistoric" in the literal sense of the word, since it precedes the earliest records of human history (including Abraham's circumcision account present in the Old Testament, Judaism's founding event).

Copy of egyptian relief from about 2300 B.C.

AND WHY WAS RITUAL CIRCUMCISION PRACTICED?

There are some hypotheses for its emergence in prehistoric groupings: punishments and prohibitions against sexual misconduct, rites of passage from childhood to adulthood, expiatory sacrifices of archaic religions[4].

Circumcision as a rite of passage into adulthood is still carried out today in some African tribes

Circumcision would hinder and inhibit masturbation and reduce sexual pleasure, and would also result in a decrease in the occurrence of rapes within primitive clusters: one study found that the orificial penetration of the glans uncovered and devoid of lubrication demands much more force ("10 times more" under the study's test conditions) than that required for the penetration of the glans initially covered by a retractile foreskin, since the latter can use the entrance of the orifice as a fulcrum during penetration - allowing the glans to be projected forward with very little resistance due to friction[5].

In the Jewish religion, the amputation is performed in newborns

In Islam, the act usually occurs throughout childhood

From the early centuries of the Christian Era, however, the diffusion of the ritual amputation of the foreskin began to find some contention throughout history, since Christianity did not perpetuate its "religious" character[6].

NEW JUSTIFICATIONS

In recent centuries, in societies whose religious system did not require or even support the practice of ritual circumcision, other justifications for its perpetuation as a routine procedure were rationalized[7].

During the Victorian Era (second half of the nineteenth century in the United Kingdom), it was argued that the amputation of the foreskin could prevent diseases such as polio and tuberculosis, and also avoid a dreaded syndrome then known as masturbatory insanity[8]: the crucial point in forcing the acceptance of circumcision as a "preventive" measure was to demonize the foreskin and blame it for the most feared diseases of the time.

In the United States, this movement (started in the United Kingdom) gained momentum in the late nineteenth century, and in a short time circumcision was already being propagandized in North America as a remedy for alcoholism, epilepsy, asthma, gout, rheumatism, curvature of the spine, headache, hysteria and other disorders of the nervous system, paralysis, malnutrition, "night terrors", foot-twitches, eczema, convulsions, mental retardation, promiscuity, syphilis and cancer[1,9,10]. Physicians also advised circumcision for the treatment of neurasthenia[11], a generalized psychiatric condition whose symptoms resembled what is now known as panic syndrome and depression.

A LITTLE MORE HISTORY

While England eventually abandoned routine circumcision by the middle of the twentieth century, in the United States it not only continued to be practiced, but became even more popular from the 1950s.

​One possible explanation for this phenomenon is the fact that, after World War II, the United States underwent profound Jewish cultural influence, exercised both politically and through control of the media (news agencies, television channels, cinematographic industry)[12]. It is no accident that Israel and the United States are the only countries in the world where neonatal circumcision is widespread.

Another curious phenomenon was the case of South Korea, which, as a consequence of the "Americanization" of its culture after the Korean War, had the number of interventions dramatically increased in the last decades of the twentieth century[13,14]. In that country, however, routine circumcision has been predominantly performed on adolescents, not on newborns such as the US and Israel.

present times

In the 21st century, the ritual practice of foreskin amputation remains going strong in the Islamic world, Jewish communities and some regions of Africa.

​In the United States, although still widespread, routine circumcision of newborns has been losing strength recently, thanks to awareness programs developed by a number of activist groups for the purpose of child genital integrity[15].

Manifestation against routine circumcision in front of the White House

Activists protest at the US Congress

But even in countries where ritual or routine circumcision is practiced only by minorities, there is still a certain propensity to amputate the foreskin by any given pseudo-medical motivation throughout childhood and adolescence, such as otherwise easily treatable inflammatory conditions[16]. In other words, circumcision is "a solution looking for a problem"[17].This unconscious propensity to circumcise stemming from primeval times, associated with disinformation of the population (and even of the medical community) and with vested financial interests makes the frequency of execution of this intervention much greater than clinically necessary[16].